Moy Park staff expect change under new ownership

Staff at Northern Ireland based Moy Park are waiting to hear what changes will take place following the company’s acquisition by the Brazilian Marfrig Group, which has just received EU approval.

Some uncertainty is said to have existed among staff, following the announcement earlier this year that Moy Park’s previous owner, the OSI Group, was to transfer the company to the £1.2bn Brazilian food group. The deal involves Marfrig acquiring Moy Park and the poultry interests of OSI in Brazil. As a result OSI becomes a significant shareholder in Marfrig.

Moy Park employs around 7,000 people in total across its 13 sites with operations in Northern Ireland, England, France and the Netherlands. It has annual sales of around £700M, producing poultry products and supplying major retailers such as Sainsbury and Asda and foodservice outlets McDonald's and KFC.

In a statement released last week, Marfrig’s founder and president, Marcos Antonio Molina dos Santos, said: “Moy Park has an enviable, solid reputation with consumers and customers. We look forward to working with all the people in Moy Park to continue to build a strong, EU-based food business. Marfrig has a high quality food processing base across South America where our production facilities are world class. We therefore will be complementing Moy Park’s activity in the EU.”

He added: “The transaction we announced today gives Moy Park in the future the opportunity to achieve greater scale and competitive edge in an increasingly global marketplace.” He also gave a reassurance that Moy Park would maintain its strong commitment to local farming and primary production.

Nigel Dunlop, who took over as md of Moy Park in January 2008, said: “We are delighted to now be part of the Marfrig Group. Our plan, already in place, is to establish Moy Park as the market’s premier provider - this means providing consumers with genuinely high quality, locally farmed and locally produced food at a price that provides a fair return to us and our hundreds of contract farmers.” He said that, over time, the plan was to widen the range of product offered to customers.

“A business like ours requires continual and consistent investment in people and plant in order to stay ahead,” he added. Over the past six years Moy Park has invested around £120M in new equipment.